From Chuang Tzu:
Wandering on the sunny side of Yin Mountain, T’ien Ken came to the banks of the Liao River and met a Man with No Name. He asked this man, “Could you tell me how to govern the world?”
The Man with No Name said, “Get away from me, peasant! What kind of stupid question is that! I’m busy doing nothing. You have a lot of nerve coming along with this talk of governing the world and disturbing my mind.”
But T’ien Ken asked his question a second time.
The Man with No Name replied,
“Let your mind wander in simplicity, blend your spirit with the vastness, and follow along with things the way they are. Rest only in inaction. Relax your body, expel your intelligence, release both body and mind, and all things will return to their root. Then the world will be governed.”
By “inaction” the nameless man is referring to wu-wei, which means not to struggle with things, to find a more natural way, to let your spirit flow like a gentle summer breeze.
Li Po, the Chinese poet from the 8th century, like Chuang Tze before him, liked to portray himself as lazy. More than likely it was partly true, but I suspect the representation was also used as a metaphor, as in this poem, “Summer Day in the Mountains”:
Too lazy to wave a white feather fan,
sitting stripped to the waist in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a overhanging rock;
the wind through the pine-trees brushes my bare head.
Happy Summer, y’all. Have fun, and remember to take it easy.
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Chuang Tzu and Li Po adapted from translations by Burton Watson, Arthur Waley and D. Howard Smith
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